Benefits of Making Your Own Soap

When I first started making soap, back in 2010, I was just looking for a cheap hobby to spend 4-5hrs a week on. I didn’t really look into it much further. After the first year of making soap, I was shocked by all of the benefits that came with spending 3hrs a week making soap had. I decided to sit down and list the biggest benefits of making your own soap. Here it is, Chelsea’s list of top 5 benefits of making your own soap!

Here’s Chelsea’s list of the top 5 benefits of making your own soap.

1. No thanks!

Most commercial soap that you purchase at the grocery store or pharmacy include harmful chemicals that can irritate your skin. Some of these harmful chemicals include: Triclosan, Dioxane, Sodium laurel sulfate, Diethanolamine, Formaldehyde, Parabens and PEG-6. When making your own soap, you don’t have to include any of these! In fact, it would be very difficult for you to add any one of these chemicals. ON top of this, there’s also one key ingredient that commercial soap lacks and that’s glycerin.

Glycerin is the main moisture-trapping component found in soap, but commercial manufacturers often remove this from soap as it’s a valuable byproduct and is used in expensive lotions and creams. Unfortunately, removing glycerin leaves you with a basic cleaning agent that dies out your skin wonderfully, which may not be bad for people with very oily skin. When making your own soap, you can decide on how much glycerin you want to add.

2. Made to Order

There are many different types of skin out there and they all need a little something different to look their best. People with very dry skin will need soap with a high concentration of glycerin. Those with oily skin can do without glycerin and those with skin conditions such as psoraris would benefit greatly from added cayenne pepper to their soap – read more about the benefits of cayenne pepper here. Want to open up those pores? There’s a number of exfoliants you can add to your soap, e.g., poppy seeds, dead sea salt, rosemary, coconut flakes and even coffee. Yes, coffee.

3. Save money, make money!

Nothing will be cheaper than making your own soap, especially in bulk. Four hours of your time can make enough soap to last one person 6 months. The savings are incredible! Not to mention, you can always sell your soap to friends and family and if you want to take it a step further, start selling on Etsy.

4. Surprise!

Craft soaps make for amazing gifts! I can’t tell you how many times someone will call me up months/years after I had given them some soap to tell me how much they are still enjoying it. It’s the gift that keeps on giving and the best part is that it’s cheap. Don’t worry, you won’t come off as cheap, because you put in your sweat and tears to make their soap. Ok, maybe not sweat and tears, but you don’t have to tell them how easy it was. Be warned, if you gift soap too often you will be labeled as the soap lady/guy!

5. It’s Fun!

There’s something fun and oddly soothing about making soap, at least for me. Getting your formula just right is fun and more challenging than you would think. Then comes the appearance, making the swirls inside your soap looking aesthetically pleasing takes some practice, but once you get it down you can get really creative. This ones a bit subjective, but you won’t know unless you give it a try!